FRANCISTOWN, (CAJ News) – SPORTS fans can now enjoy access to Wi-FI connectivity at some Botswana stadia following the installation of the technology at landmark venues.
Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet), a provider of more than 9 000km of fibre throughout the country, has contracted Ruckus Wireless, Inc. to provide extensive wireless connectivity at two stadia that hosted the country’s Golden Jubilee Independence Day event.
The National Stadium in Gaborone (24 000 capacity) and the Francistown Stadium (27 000) hosted the celebration last September.
Mabua Lesego Mabua, Chief Executive Officer at BoFiNet, says the company wants to offer Batswana fans a full experience and connectivity is a critical component of this.
“We therefore saw this as an opportunity to expand our offering and provide stadium-wide coverage at both stadia,” says Mabua.
Ruckus, through its reseller IT-IQ Botswana, was awarded the contract following an extensive tender process due to the quality of its solutions and its competitive pricing.
While it would be focused around providing Wi-Fi access at the for the jubilee celebrations that took place in September, the system needed to be robust enough to use at future events.
Riaan Graham, Sales Director for Ruckus Wireless sub-Saharan Africa, says BoFiNet required a wireless solution that could not only provide exceptional coverage but do so at high quality with a good throughput and ability to stream the celebrations from the stadia.
“Additionally, access had to be supported across different operating systems reflecting the diversity of the devices used amongst attendees,” adds Graham.
For the stadium in Gaborone, IT-IQ deployed two centralised Ruckus ZoneDirector controllers, five indoor Ruckus ZoneFlex R500 access points, and 50 ZoneFlex T301 outdoor access points. Francistown had four Zone Flex R500 indoor access points and 40 ZoneFlex T301 outdoor access points.
Such was the strength and quality of the Ruckus solutions, that Gaborone had a peak concurrent usage of 2,266 devices with 5,690 unique users while Francistown peaked at 1,136 devices and 2,528 unique users. The former reached a peak bandwidth of 200Mbps while the latter attained 120Mbps.
– CAJ News